Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.

(Fran Lebowitz)

Luhring Augustine is delighted to announce an exhibition entitled settle for a good fantasy, showcasing the work of four photographers, Janice Guy, Joe Mama-Nitzberg, Shaun Pierson, and David Seidner. The exhibition will open at our Chelsea gallery on September 11 and run through October 24. Other than Pierson, who was included in Tiptoeing through the kitchen: recent photography (April 2024), this will be the first presentation of these artist’s works at Luhring Augustine.

Sharing an approach to portraiture that rejects notions of idealization, these artists embrace strategies of patchworking in which the “puzzle pieces” will not, and should not, fit together seamlessly. Eschewing the classical approach of emphasizing a cohesive ideal, they each weave a picture of their subjects from disparate sources of information to create nuanced and multi-faceted impressions.

For these artists, the imperfect and the unresolved are paramount: fracturing, then reintegration becomes a pathway towards image-building, slippages erode archetypal portrayals, and questions dominate over answers.